Jaguar Is Back On Winning Track

Reviving Legends, Refueling Sales

May 5, 1988|By John Hicks of The Sentinel Staff

Britain's Jaguar, only recently considered more of a pussycat than a beast to be reckoned with, is clawing its way back to the top.

In the first five International Motor Sports Association events this year, 12-cylinder Jag XJR-9s have grabbed a first, three seconds and a seventh, sending the leaping cat into the front ranks of American road racing.

Other Jaguars stalk the European circuits in 1988, so far with two victories and a second-place finish.

Jaguars are giving fits to the German Porsches, which have dominated international road racing for years, and giving race fans the competition and excitement they crave.

But the triumphs so far are merely warm-ups for the main event next month at a deceptively picturesque race track outside the French town of Le Mans.

There, on June 11 and 12, the U.S. and European factory teams, both managed by the hard-charging Scot Tom Walkinshaw's TWR organization, will go for the works' first victory in the car-breaking 24 Hours of Le Mans since the 1950s, when Jags captured first place five times in seven starts.

Jaguar proved it has the stamina for the long run three months ago during the 24 hours of Daytona. In a superheated contest, the non-turbo XJR-9 beat out the turbocharged Porsches and claimed Jaguar's first 24-hour race win in more than 30 years.

A month later and much more quietly, the SS Madame Butterfly departed Southampton, England, with a record shipment of 1,100 Jaguar XJ6 sedans and XJ-S V12 coupes for the U.S. market.

That shipment represents the time-honored connection between such places as Daytona and Le Mans and the Madame Butterfly: Win on Sunday, sell on Monday. Having recently remembered that rule, Jaguar has returned to the track in a style befitting a legend.

Although Jaguar broke new technological ground and earned lasting fame during the 1950s and '60s, the manufacturer's quality and, consequently, its sales, steadily declined. In 1980, an especially dark year for Jaguar, U.S. sales plummeted to 2,518.

In a world of sophisticated and mechanically sound German and Japanese imports, people no longer were content to mop up oil puddles under their costly Jaguars and patch electrical systems on a too-regular basis.

Then in gloomy 1980, John Egan took over as chairman of Jaguar and began dragging the company back from the edge of oblivion. By 1986, Jaguar had sold a record 24,919 cars in this country. That same year, in a royal nod to his management wizardry, Queen Elizabeth II dubbed the Jaguar chairman Sir John Egan.

Those sales figures are modest, compared with the millions of cars sold by General Motors and Ford each year. However, when you consider that six- cylinder XJ6 models cost from $43,500 and that prices for the 12-cylinder XJ-S begin at $47,000, the small numbers still mean big money.

Jaguar will up its ante in the luxury-car game later this year when the new XJ-S convertible arrives. Estimated cost: $50,000-plus.

Improved quality aside, it was racing that established Jaguar's international reputation; and it is racing that is attracting a new generation of buyers. The wisdom of Egan's 1982 decision to give racing entrepreneur Walkinshaw a shot at getting the cat back into the winners' circle has become apparent.

In the words of Ian Norris, a spokesman for Jaguar Cars Inc. in Leonia, N.J.:

''John Egan feels that racing is a part of our history and our faithful customers who have supported Jaguar since the car became internationally known expect us to be racing.

''He says that when we won Le Mans five times in seven years in the '50s, it was like putting money into a bank and we are still drawing on the interest. . . . It's time now to deposit some more racing credibility in the bank.''

For many years, the factory did not field a team, and it was left to privateers to maintain Jaguar's winning image. In the 1970s, for example, U.S. racers Bob Tullius and Lee Mueller drove the V-12 Jaguar E-type into the top levels of Sports Car Club of America racing.

In the early 1980s, when Jaguar began officially restoring its sporting image in this country, Tullius campaigned 12-cylinder Group 44 XJR-5s and XJR- 7s for Jaguar Cars on the International Motor Sports Association racing circuit.

He and his fellow drivers did not break Porsche dominance of the sport, but they won applause from racing fans hungry for some of the international cut-and-thrust that characterized sports-car and prototype racing of the 1950s and '60s.

When Walkinshaw took over the factory's European racing efforts in 1982, the financially ailing company linked support directly to results.

In 1982, Jaguar gave Walkinshaw bonuses for four victories in the XJ-S coupe and the promise of continued support. By 1984, Walkinshaw had given Jaguar the European Touring Car, or sedan, championship. This past year, Walkinshaw's TRW Jaguar team brought new glory to Jaguar by winning the World Sports Prototype Championship.